West High's Nock named cross country athlete of year

“I kind of went into it thinking I’m just going to try my best, but it definitely takes more than that,” West High freshman Bailey Nock said of improving her cross-country times.
(Photo:
David Scrivner / Iowa City Press-Citizen
)Buy Photo

Bailey Nock may have begun her prep career slowly, but the way the season ended proved to be worthwhile.

The West High freshman climbed her way up not only the West lineup but also the state charts, finishing in third place at the Class 4-A state meet Nov. 1 in Fort Dodge. Nock crossed the finish line in 14 minutes, 19 seconds — the best mark out of any runner in the area.

For that achievement, Nock is the 2014 Press-Citizen Cross Country Athlete of the Year. West senior Emmie Skopec was also considered.

Even though Nock accumulated success prior to this fall, there is no comparison to the high school level, West coach Mike Parker noted.

"She had a very successful junior high career, but we have a lot of people that do well when you're 13 running against other 13-year-olds," Parker said this week. "But can you run against 18-year-olds when you get to high school? There's a big gap between that, but we kind of knew what Bailey's potential was coming in.

"We started her off very slow in our summer training program. We trained her at a very low-mileage level to bring her along slowly. But we knew she had great potential."

The 14-year-old didn't get involved in competitive running until seventh grade.

She took the words of Parker, and turned out one of the area's best seasons by an underclassman. The Women of Troy have a stout résumé developing runners, with five individual state champions, five cross country titles and six track and field crowns.

"I was definitely not prepared for all the hard work it was going to take," Nock said. "I kind of went into it thinking I'm just going to try my best, but it definitely takes more than that. It takes a lot of mental strength. It was rough the first couple weeks, but once you get the hang of it, the workouts that used to be terrible and super hard kind of became a normal workout."

The turning point came at the near midway point of the season, when Parker gave Nock a new set of instructions.

After a careful strategy — teams don't want to start races too hard, but also don't want to spend too much time settling in the back of the pack — Nock became a contender.

"Coach told me not to hold back," Nock said. "I could keep up with our No. 1 runner at the time, which was Emmie. I'm not always going to be able to beat everyone, but I shouldn't go into thinking I'm going to lose."

Peering into the future, it is easy to wonder what Nock could accomplish. Nock will also be on the track and field roster this spring, so she has all four track seasons and three more cross country seasons remaining.

She will be close to the front of the pack again soon, and probably often.

"She had success in junior high with really no training at all," Parker said. "We started from scratch. The great thing about Bailey was she said, 'Tell me what to do, Coach. How far do I need to run? How fast do I need to do it?' Through that, we got where we wanted to be at the end of the year, and this freshman girl was from here to that wall away from winning the state championship, and the only two people that beat her were seniors."